


We who serve, endure

by zinjadu



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka lives!, But I don't care, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I had to write this because oh sweet fancy guys, I hope, Post-Episode: s02e19-20 Twilight of the Apprentice, Reflection, but Rex doesn't know about that, it hurts, this is not original
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 05:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7606360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rex after Twilight of the Apprentice.  </p><p>Its been done, but those episodes compel us all to write our own take on it, I think.  If only to get it out of our systems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We who serve, endure

Rex knew.

 

He knew from before seeing Kanan and Ezra.

 

He knew from the hush that came over the base at their return, the breath stopping short, the hearts slowing in sympathy.

 

Ahsoka Tano wasn’t coming back from Malachor.

 

Closing his eyes, clenching his jaw, he fought his grief down and did his duty. He helped Hera get Kanan to the medical bay to be seen to, though there was nothing to do for the young man’s eyes. Instead, Rex put a hand on the Jedi’s shoulder, the way he had seen Kix do countless times for brothers in need of comfort.

 

He checked on Ezra, and sat with the boy as the sun set over the arid world they provisionally called home. There was nothing to be said, and Rex knew from long experience that trying to put words in places where words didn’t go could only make things worse. Tup had done this, a time or two, just sat and took in the galaxy for what it was, providing solid, silent company.

 

Then Rex made the rounds, checking on troopers, offering a comforting hand, or a small word of encouragement that made a few lips twitch upwards in subdued pride. This, this he hadn’t learned during Kamino officer training. No, this he had learned from the greatest general he had ever known, but Anakin Skywalker was dead and gone, and a monster in his place.

 

Night had fallen now, and there was nothing left to do, no maintenance to perform, no reports to read, no data to double check. Just an empty night between him and the sunrise.

 

A night full of ghosts.

 

In his bunk, alone, Rex removed his armor, and set it on the shelf across from his bunk, but stared beyond it, into the distance, gaze fixed on another time and another place.

 

A place where Fives had just pulled _another_ kriffing prank, where Echo was reciting manual answers to questions from shinies. A time when Hardcase, Jesse, Dogma, and Tup were bright and new and unscared. When Kix had hunted him down for his physical. Where Skywalker and Ahsoka had led them to victory, bright and glorious.

 

But they had all marched far away now.

 

Echo died at the Citadel, Hardcase and Dogma on Umbara for that madman Krell. Tup on Kamino after Ringo Vinda, and then Fives in that warehouse on Coruscant. Jesse and Kix fell on Mandalore, and at least Ahsoka had been there to witness with him, to say the words.

 

Then there was the general. Rex supposed he lost Skywalker on that night, on the night when everything went mad, and the only thing Rex thought was that he was happy his closest brothers weren’t alive to be turned into puppets. Because he had stopped getting attached to brothers after a while.

 

But now there was no one, because the one person who could witness with him was gone too, walking away into the distance. Leaving him. Old before his time. And alone.

 

Hunched over, head in his hands, Rex did something he rarely did.

 

He cried.

 

He cried for his brothers, for his general, and most of all he cried for a girl gone to war too young, made into a soldier when she could have been so much more, a girl who became a young woman in the middle of death and destruction, who became a woman who had made it her mission to help others in need, to fight tyranny and evil.

 

A woman who was fierce and kind, bright and cocky, beautiful and maddening. A woman of deep compassion and a wicked sense of humor. A woman with a brilliant smile and eyes an impossible blue.

 

A woman he should have died protecting. Because it was the worst kind of trooper who survived his Jedi, and for all that she left the Order, she would always be _his_ Jedi.

 

A woman he had loved with all his heart, in ways that he couldn’t really explain.

 

In the morning, he would be himself again. He would help these rebels fight the Empire, in part because it was the right thing to do, but also because it was what she would do. And if she wasn’t here, then he could be.

 

Rex had always been a man who served those who needed him, a man who endured privation, loss, horror and heartache, because he had learned by example from the best. Now the best were gone, and he was all that was left.

 

He supposed he would have to do.

 

Getting his breathing back under control, Rex scrubbed his hands over his face, and stood. Digging out a candle, he lit it, and recited.

 

“ _Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum_ Echo, Dogma, Hardcase, Tup, Fives, Kix, Cody, Anakin Skywalker…” he paused and took a breath, his heart a leaden lump in his chest, his throat closing up again at the very thought, but he pushed through, because she deserved to be remembered.  Forever. “Ahsoka Tano.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum = Mandolorian daily remembrance for the dead (lit. I'm still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal)


End file.
